Is it possible to unload a plugin from a vst?

I’ve noticed that one difference between the behavior of VST~ on Max 6 vs Max 5 is that on the former, when you first instantiate a [vst~] object, there’s no plugin loaded. In Max 5, there always seems to be a default plugin with a parameter called GAIN.

So I’m wondering whether, in Max 6, there’s a way to unload a plugin so that if a [vst~] is not needed for a while, there’s no need for a plugin to be taking up memory, etc.

send the message "plug dummy" or substitute the word ‘dummy’ with any non-existent vst on your system. there will be an inconsequential error message in the max window saying it couldn’t find the vst but the object will be freed of any previously loaded vsts.